Does the use of binary indicators reify difference and inequality?

Scholarship has noted the omnipresence of gender and has revealed persistent devaluation of women and their bodies. Illuminating the limitations of our existing gender order, feminist scholars have focused on the problem of gender duality. In doing so, questions about the validity of binary gender and sex categories have been raised. Calls to “undo gender”, however, are met with an acknowledgement of institutionalized accountability structures, which perpetuate gendering and reinforce sex and gender as containing discrete, dichotomous categories. While recognizing the socio-political necessity to eliminate this dualistic understanding of gender, I argue using binary indicators remains an important part of the feminist research agenda. I acknowledge the tension between these two positions but suggest that the continued use of existing binaries does not preclude calls for a degendering movement.